Fruits

A couple weeks ago, I opened our fridge to find that there was an odor starting to develop. Our fridge tends to make chaos look organized so it took quite some time to discover the source of the offending odor. The culprit in this particular case was a piece of an onion. I frequently use part of an onion when cooking and I'll put the rest in a baggie to use later. The problem is that I don't always remember there is an onion baggie in the fridge. In fact, at any given time, there is normally several onion baggies in the fridge. This particular onion looked like it may have been in the fridge since we moved here. But this message isn't about my bad memory…

Do you exude love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control? In other words, has the holy spirit taken up residence where your 'self' used to rule? If so, do you ever notice that your 'self' wants to move back in and (s)he doesn't want a room mate? What I'm getting at is - occasionally, I notice that my 'fridge' starts to develop an odor. It may be greed, lust, envy, jealousy, hatred, anxiety, discontentment, pride, etc. And unlike my real fridge, I'm not always too quick to tear things apart to find the source. In fact, I think my natural tendency is to do something akin to installing an odor eater… Covering up the symptoms instead of confronting them. Something like putting on the "everything's OK church face". Because the last thing I want is for someone else to notice the odor.

This Wednesday, let's pray that we pay attention to the fruit we're bearing. And when we notice that it's not the fruit He intended, that we are open and honest enough to search the 'fridge' in order to root out the problem. And that we feel comfortable enough with our brothers and sisters to let them help mind our 'fridge' and vice versa.

Have a great week and a great fast.
Your brother,
Bob